Will Robb Photography

It seems that I got through phases of working on the same kind of jobs in blocks, sometimes 3 weeks of fashion shows, then a month of shoots for guidebooks, recently I’ve done a couple of weeks of portrait sessions which I’ve really really enjoyed. In most cases, Sue has been helping me out and she has once again been an invaluable help to me with lights, suggestions and most importantly, helping keep each client relaxed and happy with what is going on. It really does make a huge difference when you have at least one other person working with you, two heads are indeed better than one. When you are doing portraits though, you can have the best camera and lenses in the world, but if you don’t have good light you won’t get good shots. Shooting during the day there is a lot of good natural light (the best kind) out, but when you don’t have that you have got to make up for it. Even on day shoots of late I am using my speedlites, but when it gets to night time you MUST use them or you’re not going to get anything of worth. Some photographers I know say they never use lights of any kind. Some people can get good shots using natural/available light, but I think by doing that they are limiting themselves. You don’t need a massive kit of umpteen lights and a huge crew of assistants (although I am sure it would help), with basic kit and a couple of flashes you can get some very nice results.

Just over a week ago we photographed a tattoo artist and model from Hawaii called Mandy Garcia who was in town for a few days. We met her in Shibuya on a very hot and humid Saturday night, it was about 35 degrees and extremely humid out, it really did feel like we were in a sauna and with having to lug a pile of gear around with us, we pretty soaked with sweat before we had even started, but it was immediately clear that Mandy was a really nice person and we knew it was going to be a fun shoot, so well worth braving the sticky Tokyo summer elements. Mandy wanted to do a few clothes changes, so we decided on a route around Shibuya where we could get different shots, with Mandy having a lot of tattoos I wanted kind of gritty backdrops for the shoot, Shibuya affords many such venues, so it was a great choice of venue to shoot her in.

As per normal, I had my 5DmkII, my 24-70mm, 17-40mm, 50mm, both my 580EX and 580EXII speedlitess, my ST-E2 transmitter and a tripod. Although I recently bought a couple of stands for the speedlights, an umbrella and a softbox umbrella, we didn’t bring them as it was too much stuff to haul about for a shoot on busy streets.

Anyway, we found a good spot to start with just past the Tokyu Hands store where there are always plenty of walls covered in flyers etc. Mandy took a fancy to a pole nearby and started striking poses for us there, so that’s where we started. I set up one of the speedlites to my right on the ground (just on the little stand it comes with to make it sit upright), about 2m behind Mandy and Sue was standing to my left with the other flash, holding it up high and pointing it at about a 30 degree angle to Mandy. I had the ST-E2 transmitter mounted on the 5D mkII, so it was triggering triggering the off shoe speedlights (which are referred to as “slave” units when the transmitter mounted on the camera is the “master”). I wanted to get the whole scene in, so I shot with my 17-40mm f4L lens. I used the same lens for some close up shots on the pole, this time Sue was again to the left, pointing the flash to the right side of Mandy’s head as I held the other speedlite directly above her, but with a slightly less power than the one Sue was holding. With the St-E2 transmitter you can select one slave to have more power in it than the other, so you can play about with the light more. There is no rules about what works for each shot, you just have to play about, review your shots, see if you need to change anything and keep at it until you find what you want.

After a quick clothes change, we did some shots at a nearby wall covered in flyers. Again, I had Sue hold one slave unit above Mandy, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right and we placed the other slave at ground level to make sure the tattoos on Mandy’s legs were well lit. Mandy was always pretty relaxed with whatever we wanted to do, she went into a lot of poses by herself and Sue came up with some pretty good suggestions as well. My ideas were few by comparison, I was thinking more about the light, where to place slaves, where Sue should hold slaves etc. Three heads are way better than one. At that time of night (about 9pm) there were a lot of people coming out of nearby restaurants and bars, Mandy definitely caught their eyes so within no time we were getting small crowds gawping, something that was to continue all night.

And so we continued down the street, stopping off at some spots to rehydrate, let Mandy change, take some more shots at different spots until we got down to one of the bridges which crosses the street on the road from Harajuku to the north side of Shibuya station. Same set up as usual, flashes, shooting off shoe etc, but here is where I want to make the whole point of this blog. If you are shooting portraits, especially at night, you need lights. To illustrate my point, here is a shot of Mandy on the bridge when I had put the transmitter on the wrong setting and the flash didn’t fire in a badly lit part of the bridge.

Awful isn’t it? You can’t see anything, no detail, you can barely tell it is a person and no amount of editing is going to save this photo. Then, another shot with a slave on the ground to my right and Sue holding the other slave up high and pointing it down towards Mandy. Big difference right?

Same thing again, on top of the bridge where there was a decent amount of light and I was shooting with my 50mm f1.2L lens. In the first shot below, I didn’t use any flashes, just the street lamps above which were pretty light. I overexposed 1/3 of a stop, had the lens at f2.8 and could shoot at 1/50th of a second with iso 400 and it looks semi decent, but not great, definitely not a shot I will be sending to a mag, there is a lack of detail in the tattoos, it’s not flattering for skin tones, it’s shots of a model so it needs to be detailed, it need to have good skin tones and this doesn’t.

Then, same set up, but this time using one slave on my left only and using the light from streetlights to the right of me. The shot was overexposed by 1/3 of a stop. It gave nice detail on the tattoos on her right arm, but the left side of her was a bit green:

This time, one slave, but on my right with the streetlight behind it and underexposed by one stop (in practice shots you can review and see if the shot is too light or dark, then under or over expose you next shots accordingly). Really nice light on her left side, but a big shadow over her right arm which isn’t flattering for her tattoos.

Then we have two slaves, one to either side of her, the shot over exposed by 1/3 of a shot and nicer detail either side, although there are shadows from her jewelry I would like to take out with another flash if I had it. Next on my wish list is a third speedlight for this very reason.

To finish off I wanted to get some shots of Mandy at Shibuya crossing with lots of people crossing in motion and her still. Unfortunately, it was already 10.30pm, there wasn’t a huge crowd crossing (would loved to have done it at dusk, but we didn’t get started till well after then), but we made the most of it none the less. I mounted the camera on my tripod, used my wide 17-40mm lens and only one slave with the transmitter. Sue was watching my bag, I was holding the flash above my head and flashing down onto Mandy and I was doing a 1/6th of a second exposure to get the sense of motion. Sue took some photos of me then with her point and shoot which help illustrate the point. I should point out I was also using a cable release to get the shot, when using the tripod I always use it, especially when I have to hold a slave above my head. An extra hand would have been useful.

Same thing again when the slave doesn’t fire…major difference.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you don’t have good light available, you’ve got to make it. With a canon set up, it really is pretty simple and it will make a huge difference to your final shots. Happy shooting.